The Silence of Animals

'By nature volatile and discordant, the human animal looks to silence for relief from being itself while other creatures enjoy silence as their birthright.'

Why do humans seek meaning to life? How do our imaginations leap into worlds so far beyond our actual reality? In this chilling and beautiful sequel to Straw Dogs, John Gray explores how we decorate our existence with countless fictions, twisting and turning to avoid acknowledging that we too are animals. Drawing on an extraordinary array of writers who are mesmerized by extremity, from Ballard to Conrad, Gray makes us re-imagine our place in the world.

'A marvellous statement of what it is to be both an animal and a human in the strange, terrifying and exquisite world in which we straw dogs find ourselves.' John Banville, Guardian

'Full of richness . . . a pleasure to read.' Jane Shilling, Daily Telegraph

'He takes down utopians of various stripes and then starts wiggling the dentist's drill in the liberal molar . . . In Gray's book, it's humanity that is the problem: we need to get over ourselves.' Sam Leith, Sunday Times

'A secular prophet, sensationally truth-telling, clear-sighted and unperturbed by the illusions under which the rest of us labour . . . what's more unexpected is how beautifully the unbearable quality of that desperation is evoked' Shahidha Bari, The Times Higher Education